


Spring Will Live Forever

by YukiRiikus_Reading_Room



Series: Change of the Seasons [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Returns, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, F/M, M/M, Memories, Multi, Natasha Feels, Past Lives, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Relationship(s), Steve Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room/pseuds/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce finally manages to break the Red Room's hold over the Winter Soldier, returning him to his sanity and to being Bucky Barnes.  Though it breaks her heart, Natasha knows its for the best and that he's doubtlessly forgotten her in the wake of his returned memories.</p><p>Then he goes and calls her Natalia, and she just can't take it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Will Live Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mata/gifts).



Natasha was halfway through her normal morning rep doing pull ups in the work-out room when Tony burst in looking like he a five year old on Christmas morning, a wide yet confused smile across his face as he glanced quickly around the room before his eyes settled on its only other occupant.  Her interest peaked, Natasha pulled herself up fully to get a better look at his surprised, thrilled face.

There’d been little around the helicarrier to smile about in the last month since they’d brought aboard the Winter Soldier.  Steve was beside himself, often becoming unfocused during missions to the detriment of the team and spending all of his free time at his best friend’s bedside even though the Winter Soldier tried to strangle him so often Fury had special shackles built to keep him chained to bed that even his mechanical arm couldn’t break through.  It seemed, though no one would say it, that Bucky was Captain America’s kryptonite – though whether they were silent to save his feelings or because they knew he wouldn’t understand the reference, no one was sure.  With their unofficial leader off point, everyone else on the team was feeling the strain to make up the slack, Natasha somehow being thrust into the position of being his replacement for the time being.  Missions went on as they always had, minus Cap’s help with muscles and strategy, and though their work protecting the world, but though things weren’t necessarily going badly in their work, there was a certain sadness and grief that spread between each Avenger to the next as though Steve’s own misery were a plague. 

The fact that Tony, who had become Steve’s rock through this whole process having known so much heartache and loss in his own life, could smile again meant something wonderful must have happened.

“Have you seen Capsicle this morning?”  He asked, sighing in frustration when she shook her head.  Letting go of the bar she dropped to the ground, walking over to him to get her towel and water bottle as he glanced down at his watch.  “Bruce sent me to find him and bring him back with me as soon as possible.” 

“I can help you look for him.  What does he need with Steve?”

“I’m supposed to tell him that the Winter Soldier’s dead.”  Tony said with a small smile.  Beside him, Natasha fought back the urge to throw up as her stomach flipped over.  Trying not to let her panic show in her face, she looked up at him against the sickening lump forming in her throat.  “And thanks to Bruce’s brilliance, with his death, James Bucky Barnes has finally returned to us.”

As Tony turned and hurried out of the room to look for Steve, Natasha fought the urge to scream.  Not knowing what else to do, she returned to her pull ups, willing herself as she had so often since she became an assassin to let her emotions fade out of focus until and empty numbness filled her.  For the first time in years however, she couldn’t get the unhappy, nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach to go away.  Finally she let herself down to the ground, her shoulder shaking as she shared down at her empty hands in her lap, her eyes brimming with tears she was too proud to shed.

“No,” she whispered as she stood up to return to her room “not for _us_.  Just the one, I would guess.”

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

At first Steve thought it was a dream when Tony found him talking to an engineer on the flight deck about some of the fighter planes.  He didn’t stay still long enough to listen to Tony’s exited explanations of how Bruce had brought Bucky back into his right mind, didn’t care to hear the science on the ‘how’ of how he got his best friend back.  All that mattered in his mind at that moment was that he needed to get to James Barnes as fast as possible to see for himself that Bucky was back in mind as well as body.  As he rushed through the corridors towards the medical wing, Tony sprinting behind him but failing to keep up with his harried pace, all he could hear was the rushing of his own blood pounding in his ears and the frantic beating of his heart.  Skidding into the medical wing he looked around wildly, his eyes falling on Bruce where he sat hunched over a desk scrawling notes. 

“Where did he…?”  Steve asked, Bruce glancing up with a smile, nodding at something behind Steve’s head.

“You would show up right when I was trying to make myself look presentable, wouldn’t you?”  Turning he came face to face not with the unfamiliar long hair and rage-filled face of the Winter Solider, but the charismatic smile and still damp old hairstyle of his best friend Bucky.  Though he’d rarely done it back in their own time, Steve didn’t hesitate to throw his arms around his best friend and pull him into the tightest hug he could muster.  “Looking pretty good Rogers, I especially love that leather jacket.”

“They gave it to me after you fell off the train.  It was still with the things of mine that Peggy rounded up for me in case I ever came back, and they were by my bedside when I woke up in the SHIELD headquarters.”  Steve said, blushing furiously as Bucky looked him up and down.  “I didn’t think you’d mind.  If you want it back…”

“No, you keep it.”  Bucky grinned, ruffling his friend’s hair.  Laughing Steve knocked his hand away, both of them pretending that they didn’t have tears in their eyes as they held one another.  Smiling at their happiness, Bruce quietly packed up his notes and slipped out of the room to give them some privacy.   “Besides, it looks better on you than it ever did on me anyways.”   

“Oh I doubt that.”  Steve said, shrugging off the compliment.  “You picked up quite a few ladies in this jacket if my memory serves.” 

“Yeah, but never one worth keeping.”  Bucky said, his grip on Steve’s waist tightening slightly.  If the fingers of his metal arm dug into his hip a little too hard for comfort, he didn’t really care.  The fact that those fingers, his best friend’s fingers, could touch him again at all made whatever discomfort he might be feeling worth it.  “So Dr. Banner mentioned a few things about how this time is a lot more innovative and understanding than ours was about certain things.” 

“America might not be totally perfect yet, but it’s made progress.”  Steve said shifting his arms where they sat wrapped around Bucky’s shoulders.  “Technology and the medical field have made a lot of advances.  There’s more acceptance of women in the workforce, racism has gotten less blatant and wide spread, and… homosexuality is more tolerated.” 

“Really, is that so?  People don’t get constant shit for that anymore?”  Bucky asked, smiling when he shook his head.

“There’s still tension from people firmly rooted in certain religious beliefs, and the ‘sexual ignorant assholes’ as Clint calls them that think it’s unnatural and wrong but can’t argue why.”  Steve said, smiling when Bucky laughed.  He’d missed that sound so much, the sound that had been the constant backtrack to his life as he grew up.  Turning slightly red Steve pressed his forehead into Bucky’s shoulder, unable to say his next words while looking at his best friend.  “It’s not bad all over though.  There are a lot of people who support the gay community.  Some states have started allowing gay marriage.” 

When Bucky didn’t respond at once, Steve nearly started to cry.  It had taken him so long to come to terms with how he felt about his best friend, so many evenings talking to Coulson and Clint about how they’d known they’d wanted to be together, about how they’d handled coming out.  Steve still hadn’t told many people how he felt, mostly because he’d never felt that way about anyone but Bucky.  He’d loved Peggy Carter for a time, though more often than not he was worried he wasn’t right for her and that she deserved much more than he could give her.  But with Bucky?  He’d always known he was home when he was with his best friend.  After seeing how happy Clint and Phil were together, it got him wondering, and gradually with their help he’d come to terms with his feelings for his lost best friend.  But Bucky hadn’t had any time to adjust to the 21st century, and here he was springing things like this on him.

As Bucky pulled back, Steve braced himself for the punch he was sure was coming.  Instead, he felt a gentle hand press itself against his cheek.  Looking up in surprise, Steve blinked at the happy, loving look on his best friend’s face.  Before he could quite process what was happening, Bucky was leaning forward to press their lips together in a tender kiss.

It was at that moment that Natasha walked through the door stopping dead in her tracks in the doorway. 

Watching their moment of tenderness, the sweetness evident in the way that Bucky gently cupped Steve’s face with his metal hand, Natasha felt her heart shudder in her chest as grief washed over her.  There was nothing of the Winter Solider left in the man standing before her kindly holding his love against him, nothing of the passionate anger she’d known in the way that their lips pillowed against one another without teeth or rough presses of hands with grasping, greedy fingers.  There was nothing of the man she loved left.

Not carrying how it would look, for the first time since she was a child Natasha gave in to her emotions and ran from the room in tears, ignoring Steve’s scream of her name following her as she raced away.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

“You know, you have to come down eventually.”

“Shut up or I’ll shove that fancy bow of your up your ass Clint.”

“Listen here grouchy, I only came up here to make sure you were okay like a good partner should.  That and I left my wallet up here again.”  He said, grinning softly when she let out a strangled laugh.  Looking up Natasha wiped her eyes on her sleeve, Clint looking away pointedly as he kicked his feet dangling over the edge of the metal support beam they were both sitting on.  When she’d finally stopped sniffing he looked up, a sad smile on his face.  “You know, Steve has no idea why you flipped out and ran off like that.  He’s worried he did something to upset you.”

“You’re the only one who knows everything about me Clint.  You and Phil are the only people I ever trusted enough to tell about me and the Winter Soldier’s… relationship, for lack of a better word.”  She sighed, running a hand through her hair.  Reaching into his pants pocket Clint pulled out a hair tie and handed it to her, smiling as she pulled her hair back into a short ponytail.  “I can’t tell him Clint.  How could I tell him that the person I walked in on him kissing just now is the only person in my life I‘ve ever loved romantically?  How could I tell him that his man ca’t remember it, but that he used to be my lover when he was the Winter Soldier?”

“The same way you told me: just start at the beginning.”  Clint said, smiling as she ruffled his hair.  “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you know Bucky doesn’t remember you?”  He asked.  Blinking at him, Natasha looked away, a sad smile slipping onto her face. 

“Because if I were him, I wouldn’t want to remember me.”

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

“So do you remember being the Winter Soldier, even just a little bit?  Should we be worried about a homicidal relapse anytime soon?”

“Tony!”

“What, someone had to ask, and it didn’t look like anyone else was going to say it anytime soon.”  Tony shrugged, rolling his eyes at the angry frown spread across Pepper’s face.  Across the table from him Steve was shooting him a truly dirty look, the hard line of his jaw rigid and terse.  “Look, I’m not trying to be rude.  I’d just like to know where we stand on that front, especially since it looks like he’ll be staying here with all of us.  Speaking of which, where’s the last member of our motley crew?” 

“She told me she needed to stop off at her room before heading over here.”  Clint explained.

“Good to know.  Now, back to the original question: how stable is your brain?  Are we talking glued down jigsaw puzzle with a few cracks here and there, or wiggly not quite solid Jell-O mold for a brain here?”  Tony asked, his gaze never breaking from Bucky’s face, not even when Pepper smacked him in the back of the head. 

“I won’t lie; some things are a little fuzzy for me still.   I remember Steve’s hand reaching for me and his face being the last thing I saw before I fell, but I don’t remember the landing or anything else before waking up in the Red Room.”  Bucky said with a shrug, Steve reaching out to grasp his hand and comfort him.  They shared a brief smile between them before he turned back to look at Tony, a guilty look crossing his face.  “I do remember being the Winter Soldier, yes.  I remember the pain and the missions, the days of surgery it took to give me my new arm, the murders I committed and…”

“Sorry I’m late, I hope I didn’t hold anything up.”  Natasha said, sucking in her breath when she locked eyes with her old lover across the room.  Clint glanced between them pointedly, turning to give Phil a significant look as Bucky stood up, his eyes still locked with hers.  Everyone else shared confused looks, glancing between the pair and whispering to each other as Bucky pushed his chair back from the table and moved around it towards where she stood paralyzed in the doorway.  Only Steve looked anything but confused – he’d seen that look on Bucky’s face before when he’d go out dancing looking for girls and come home slightly drunk and cuddle with him instead. 

It was the same look he’d given him just after they kissed for the first time that afternoon.

“What are you…?”  Natasha said weakly, unable to convince her legs to move as Bucky moved towards her.  When he was right in front of her she looked down, suddenly afraid to meet his gaze. 

“Look at me.”  His metal hand cupped her chin gently, tilting her head up so that she was forced to meet his gaze.  When she did a wide, wicked smile broke out across his face, Natasha’s heart stopping from the sheer familiarity of it.   His other hand reached up to touch her cheek, his fingers pressing into her flesh a little too hard,  just like they did in all her memories of him.  “Natalia…”

“You remember.”  She said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

“How could I ever forget you?” 

“Well that was certainly unexpected.”  Tony said quietly to Pepper as Natasha pushed Bucky back against the doorframe, claiming his lips in a searing, searching kiss.  Clint let out a barking laugh clapping his hands excitedly, his happiness for his partner clear in his bright smile.  Thor and Bruce shared a look, neither one of them quite sure what to make of this development as Fury cursed under his breath and left the room.  Only Phil thought to look at Steve, the same man who’d happily introduced them not even half an hour ago to the man they’d heard so many stories about for the last year, shyly skirting around the word boyfriend as Bucky teased him by running his hand up and down the back of Steve’s neck. 

Steve looked absolutely crushed, his heart shattering in his chest as he watched Bucky wrap his arms around his teammate kissing her back with everything he had in him.  When Natasha finally pulled back, the first thing she saw were the Winter Soldier’s familiar, dark eyes that she’d missed so much over the years. 

The second thing she saw was Steve’s heartbroken face staring at her like she’d crushed all his hopes and dreams.

“Steve, I can explain…”  Natasha said quickly, taking a step away from Bucky to put some distance between them.  Not bothering to stay and listen, Cap stood up from the table and walked away.  Bucky gave her a worried, truly frightened look before hurrying after him leaving her standing in the center of the room with everyone else staring at her waiting for an explanation.

In a deserted hallway of the compound, Bucky finally managed to catch up with Steve, grabbing a hold of his wrist with his metal hand and holding on tight.

“Let go of me James.”  Steve said in a tight voice, clenching his teeth together to keep from crying. 

“Oh, so now I’m James huh?”  Bucky asked, closing his eyes when Steve both refused to look at him or answer.  “At least let me explain, please.”

“Why should I?”  Steve whipped his head around to look at him, his gaze full of righteous anger and the poisonous sting of betrayal.  “One minute you’re telling me you’ve always loved me, and the next you’re kissing my teammate, and I swear, if you try the ‘she kissed me not the other way around’ bullshit I will drop you where you stand without a second thought.” 

“Oh, like you’ve got any damn room to talk.”  Bucky snapped, shaking him roughly.  Some of the old madness Natasha would have thought was right at home with her Winter Soldier leaked onto his face, Steve swallowing against the confusion and pain rising like bile in his throat.  “I died thinking you were in love with Peggy Carter!  You know my last conscious thought?  It was that you would go right back to base, right back to Peggy, and eventually marry her and forget all about me and move on.  You know how shitty that felt?  Huh?”

“What about you and all those girls you went with back before you joined the army?”  Steve snapped back getting right up in his face.  “How do you think that felt for me, having to stay in our empty apartment all alone while you went running around doing God knows what with any girl that would have you?  You always came home smelling so strongly of booze and perfume I thought I would be sick from it.”

“The difference was I never loved any of them!  You had the gall to actually fall in love with someone that wasn’t me.”  He growled, inadvertently tightening his grip on Steve’s arm to the point that he hissed in pain.  Coming back to his senses Bucky let go of his arm immediately, taking a step back looking horrified with himself.  Dropping to his knees Bucky stared down at his metal arm, weakly clenching and unclenching his fingers, his other hand fishing in his hair.  “I never meant to hurt you, I swear.  Oh God, I keep doing everything wrong…”

“Don’t, you’ll hurt yourself!”  Steve knelt down beside him, grasping his arm with both hands pulling it out of his hair holding onto it tightly in both of his.  Swallowing against the lump in his throat Steve traced the palm of his hand, memorizing the lines he’d always been too shy to study in his own time period.  “You never did make things easy for me, did you Buck?  I guess I shouldn’t expect loving you to be any different.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.  We’ll get through this together.”  Steve said glancing up nervously.  Bucky shot him a weak smile that he returned, squeezing his fingers.  “Look, I’m not saying I’m not still a little bit hurt by what happened back there but… you gave her the same look you give me.  You look at her like you love her.”

“I do, or at least I did.  It’s a long story.”

“I think I’ve got time.”

“And that was my relationship with Bucky.  Or the Winter Soldier, to be more specific.”  Natasha sighed, rubbing at her eyes.  After the other two had run off, she’d been left to explain everything to the rest of the Avengers and Pepper, all of whom – minus Phil and Clint who’d decided to use the distraction the three of them were causing around the base to slip back to Phil’s room for a little couple’s time – had a multitude of questions for her.  By the time she was done explaining, she felt thoroughly exhausted.  It had taken nearly two hours of explanations, but finally it seemed like everyone was on the same page about what had happened to cause the drama that sent Steve running from the room. 

“And the Captain knows none of what transpired between the two of you?”  Thor asked.

“I do now.”  Everyone turned to look at Steve and Bucky as they reentered the room.  Taking back his seat at the table, Steve motioned for Natasha to take one of the empty seats.  As if on cue everyone else in the room got up from the table as she sat down, Steve staying silent until the room was empty of everyone but themselves and Bucky.  “Now, we’ve got a lot to talk out…”

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

“So what, do you two each get him three days a week and let him have Sunday off, or is the seventh day for threesomes?  What’s your system, I’m curious.”

“Anthony Stark, you gigantic man-child, leave them alone!”

“C’mon Pepper, as if anyone here can be shocked by anything I say anymore.  Besides, aren’t you the teeniest bit curious about how they worked this out, even just a little?”  Tony asked with a sly grin, laughing when she rolled her eyes and walked away to go across the room and talk to Jane and Darcy instead.    “Really though, I can barely manage to date one person without screwing it up, how do you three make this ridiculous triangle of your work?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you.”  Bucky grinned, one arm flung over each of his partner’s shoulders.  “There at the beginning when we were still working things out, it was a little difficult, but somehow we managed to figure out how to make this work.”

“It certainly helped once Natasha and I realized we were almost as attracted to each other as much as we were to Bucky.”  Steve said sheepishly, Natasha giving Tony a look that clearly dared him to make a snide comment at the risk of his life.  “Then it didn’t feel so much like a constant battle of tug of war.”

“I think,” Natasha said with a smile “it’s because we all love different pieces of each other.  And, somehow, all these pieces and combinations strung together work to make a passible whole.” 


End file.
